And Life Goes On
by Songja
Summary: Kira, Hunter and their evolving relationship after Life and Change and The Talk.


Disclaimer: Power Rangers, the characters and their universe are not mine. I just write fic about them.

Camping

Kira smiled opening the door of the rusty red truck almost the instant that they stopped. With a smile, she looked around the isolated camp grounds high in the mountains surrounding the Thunder Academy and took a deep breath of the cool air. It was early afternoon and the sun was falling behind a neighboring peak. She heard the truck door slam and turned to face Hunter, eyes sparkling and a huge grin, "Its perfect."

Hunter smiled back and moved to the back of the truck to undo the trailer that held their bikes. Kira moved to untie the tarp they had put over the bed of the truck to cover all their camping gear. Kira pulled out the tent first and after finding a fairly flat place by an established fire ring, she started setting up while Hunter continued to unload the truck.

"Hunter," Kira called when she had the tent lined up and the poles laid out. He moved over to help her set up the large 6-man tent that he and Blake had been using for years when they went on their bike trips. When all set up, there were two rooms and space enough to stand. Hunter started to move their things into one of the rooms while Kira laid out their mats, air mattresses and sleeping bags.

After they got the campground settled, they strode off hand in hand to pick up fire wood for the evening. They spoke of the academies. Although Kira spent most of her time over at the Wind academy training under Shane and Watanabe Sensei, Hunter spent time there as well. Once Kira learned to streak and due to her former ranger status, the head senseis allowed her to streak between the two schools, she was a frequent visitor.

"What are you going to do after your album is released?" Hunter asked as he occasionally picked up a piece of wood and put it in the pack on Kira's back. "How you doing? It's almost full."

"I'm fine. This release isn't really going to be different than any other."

"I don't think so. This isn't Ethan and Trent borrowing their friend's studio to put out your own thing. You just got signed by Sloan-Taylor. National distribution, concerts, fame, fortune. Any of this sound familiar?"

Kira rolled her eyes and stopped as Hunter put another piece of wood in her pack before taking the bag from her and putting it over his shoulder for the hike back. "It won't matter if I don't take. The album could bomb."

It was Hunter's turn to roll his eyes. "Kira, you're all over the radio already. When your album breaks, people are going to be lining up for it."

Kira stepped close to Hunter and slipped an arm around his waist, a bit of a feat with the bag of firewood, but she managed. She gave him a squeeze. "Do you know that you are the awesomest boyfriend ever?"

Hunter looked down at her amused, "Awesomest is not a word."

She wrinkled her nose at him and then let him go so that they could move down the trail a little, "So are you ready to handle my eminent fame?"

"Me?" They had arrived back at camp and the sun was about to set. Hunter began laying the wood for a fire while Kira went to get their jackets.

"Yeah," she popped out of the tent handing Hunter a fleece vest. She had put on a long sleeve shirt and fingerless gloves. In one hand she carried a guitar case. As Hunter started to put dinner together, Kira started with warm up exercises, then chord progressions. Hunter hummed along as she switched over to sing quietly, some music of her own and some music done by others.

Hunter frowned as she started an unfamiliar song. It was so not her style of music, he had to stop and listen to her. The lyrics read like some eighties pop rock and it seemed like she was trying to play the syrupy music with an edge. When she paused to write something in her ever present music notebook, Hunter asked, "What the heck was that?"

Kira laughed and mischief sparked in her eyes as she explained, "It's a song that Tanya asked me to look at. Apparently the good boy/bad boy with the long hair was actually Dr. O with a mullet back in his old power ranger days."

"A mullet?" Hunter said a look of horror crossing his face.

"Yeah, let me tell you, some of those old pictures are pretty scary. Anyway, the music and lyrics were written by the first pink ranger, she was Dr. O's girlfriend back in the day," Kira said with a shudder. Most of the Dino Thunder Rangers never got over the fact that their teacher and former team mate had been a teen-age power ranger with relationships. Call it an extreme case of denial, but Kira and the guys thought their sanity was more important than facing the truth of Dr. O's past.

"Anyway, Tanya found it, got Kim's permission to play with it and I get to write some edgy song about a bad boy with long hair going respectable with glasses and a doctorate."

Hunter blinked at her in confusion, "She wants that on an album?"

"No," Kira said laughing, "She just really wants me to torture Dr. O with it."

Hunter shook his head and returned to the Dutch oven he was working on. "You guys are so horrible to him, sometimes. I would never think of doing something like that to Omino Sensei."

Kira gave him a look of disbelief, "Need I remind you that you liberally and deliberately torture Leanne, Cam, Blake, Tori, Dustin and Shane whenever you can?"

"That's different, they were my teammates."

"So was Dr. O."

"No, well, yeah, but he was also your mentor and experienced leader. We would never treat our mentor that way," Hunter argued.

"The kidnapping of the hamster," Kira intoned in a sing-song voice, earning a glare from Hunter.

"We were misguided."

"Evil," Kira sang as she put down the guitar in the case.

"Manipulated," Hunter argued.

"Evil," Kira sang again coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"Yeah, and what does that say about you? You have a thing for the bad boy turned good?"

"Yeah," Kira said with a smile as Hunter turned to hold her in his arms and give her a kiss, "But trust me, compared to Dr. O? You have much better hair."


End file.
